Pears soap

Pears transparent soap was first sold in 1807 by Andrew Pears at a factory just off Oxford Street in London. It was the world's first mass-market transparent soap. Pears initiated a number of innovations in sales and marketing. The first famous campaign used Ruggero Focardi's most famous statue You dirty boy exhibited at the Exposition Universelle de Paris in 1878. The campaign proved so successful that Pear's purchased the copyright to produce copies of the statue as advertisements for their soap products. They were made for shop counter displays in terracotta, plaster and metal. From the late 19th century Pears soap was famous for its marketing. Its campaign using Millais's painting Bubbles continued over many decades and as with many other brands at the time, at the beginning of the 20th century Pears also used their product as a sign of the prevailing European concept of the civilizing mission of empire and trade, in which the soap stands for progress. Lillie Langtry's famous ivory complexion brought her income as the first woman to endorse a commercial product, advertising Pears Soap. Her fee was allied to her weight so she was paid pound for pound
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